Kamal Kishore Jain

Knowledge sharing among public sector employees: evidence from Malaysia

Purpose – The main purpose of this paper is to: identify the views of public sector employees towards the importance of Knowledge Sharing (KS); identify the barriers to KS; and identify initiatives that may encourage KS.Design/methodology/approach – The design employed in this research was mainly descriptive in nature. A survey‐based methodology employing a research questionnaire was used to elicit the views of public sector employees towards KS. A total of 320 questionnaires were randomly distributed and 170 were successfully collected, giving a response rate of 60 percent.Findings – The results showed that the respondents were very positive in their views towards “importance of KS” and they also strongly felt that knowledge was a source of competitive advantage. However, they were of the view that the importance of knowledge sharing was not clearly communicated and many of them were not sure whether KS strategy existed in their department. The public sector employees also showed self‐serving biases when...

Knowledge sharing in an American multinational company based in Malaysia

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the views of executives working in an American based multinational company (MNC) about knowledge sharing, barriers to knowledge sharing, and strategies to promote knowledge sharingDesign/methodology/approach – This study was carried out in phases. In the first phase, a topology of organizational mechanisms for knowledge sharing was developed. A review of academic and practitioner literature provided the basis for this topology. In the next phase, a detailed field‐base case study of the knowledge sharing conceptualization in a large MNC was performed based on a sample of 81 employees.Findings – The results show that most of the respondents agreed that there is a knowledge sharing strategy and there is a growing awareness of the benefit of knowledge sharing in the organization. However, it was worrying to know that 22 percent responded negatively to the statement “KS is important to the organization”. Also, 27 percent of the respondents were also not willing to share kn...

Organizational climate, trust and knowledge sharing: insights from Malaysia

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of organizational climate and trust (TR) on knowledge-sharing (KS) behaviour in selected multinational firms in an emerging market – Malaysia. Two dimensions of KS – knowledge collecting (KC) and knowledge donating (KD) – were separately studied for this research. Design/methodology/approach – Survey data were collected from 231 participants from 25 multinational firms. Multivariate analysis was used to assess the research model. Findings – The research findings indicate that organizational climate dimension, affiliation, is positively related to both KD and KC, while fairness dimensions of organizational climate are not positively related to KD and KC. Among the two dimensions of TR (cognitive and affective), it was found that cognitive TR is positively related to KD, while affective TR is positively related to KC. Research limitations/implications – The sampling was confined to the Klang Valley area of Malaysia. Practical implications – Th...

Language Conflicts in Social Arenas: Reflections for the Business World:

This paper argues that our understanding of the issues related to language conflicts inside business organizations would be enriched by close analysis of the conflicts that take place in the larger arena of the social sphere, of which the business organizations are a part. Taking clues from earlier studies, the paper argues that the prime reason behind linguistic conflicts is the fear of loss of linguistic identity by the linguistic minorities. It is further debated that the same factors related to the loss of linguistic identity would play a role in the business arena as well where the official language of the workplace puts its native speakers in an undue advantageous position with respect to other members who have learnt the official language as their second language.

Entrepreneurial inclination of students at a private university in Malaysia

Most past studies on studentsʼ entrepreneurial intention tend to focus on the phenomenon in developed countries.There is limited research on entrepreneurial intention of university students from developing nations. This article intends to close this gap by providing some insights into students℉ entrepreneurial inclination in a developing country, Malaysia. A total of 234 students from three faculties at both graduate and undergraduate levels were surveyed to examine their entrepreneurial inclination and also to examine the relationship between their demographic and social characteristics with entrepreneurial inclination.The study found strong entrepreneurial inclination among the students. Significant difference was found between students studying part time and full time and their entrepreneurial inclination. Significant difference was also found between the type of program enrolled in and students℉ entrepreneurial inclination. Further analysis and other findings were reported and recommendation for future research are been put forth in this article.

The evolution of knowledge in communities of practice

Organizations and groups rely on the effective capture and sharing of knowledge for their survival. They spend a significant amount of effort and time to codify and manage the body of knowledge that their constituents collectively possess. Despite these efforts, tacit knowledge tends to solely reside within those who use it for their day to day work. It is widely believed that tacit knowledge disappears when the individual possessing it leaves an organization or group. More and more organizations are fostering communities of practice as a mechanism to influence knowledge creation and dissemination. Hence, it becomes imperative for us to understand how best to capture the knowledge that now resides within these communities, which could extend across multiple organizations. In this research article, we establish that the knowledge contained within communities of practice evolves over a period of time. We examine the evolution of this knowledge, and its impact on the community as well as the invidividuals concerned.

Archival research: a neglected method in organization studies

Purpose Archival research is a much under-rated and under-utilized method of research in management studies. Yet multi-disciplinary undertakings being observed in recent times, such as in knowledge management (KM) systems, business history and social network studies, among others, indicate that there is a lot of potential to be explored. The purpose of this paper is to highlight this point and make a case for its inclusion in the researcher’s toolkit in the future. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow a two-stage method here: the first stage being an improvised process to benchmark articles for this review; while the second stage involves content analysis and synthesis of the same. Findings The authors have dealt with the intricacies of the archival research methodology by minutely examining the fieldwork steps, proxies generation, other related processes of triangulation, etc. With the discussion on “multi-disciplinary undertakings,” the authors offer not only a selective bibliography of works that have effectively harvested this family of methods, but also critique the nuances involved. Finally, coming into more contemporary concerns and developments, the authors undertake an in-depth look at technological applications in the domain of KM, in case study mode. Methodological richness leads to substantive granularity. As such, the authors argue that archival methods contribute to the robustness, contextuality and holism of any research endeavor, more so in the study of business and organizations. Research limitations/implications This paper is based on the literature review. Practical implications This paper makes a case for archival method’s contribution toward the robustness, contextuality and holism of any research endeavor, more so in the study of business and organizations. Originality/value This paper re-positions the method of archival research as a viable and sophisticated tool for researchers to employ effectively in singular or mixed method studies.

Higher Education in Future

Commitment’ is defined as an implicit or explicit pledge of relational continuity between exchange partners. One of the difficulties here is that commitment is closely related to the concept of loyalty and as such, might be considered to be the desired outcome of building relationship in consumer market. However if the consumer is unaware that a relationship is being developed, and he/she has not explicitly cooperated in the process, there is no evidence of commitment on his/her part. Scholars have suggested that marketing relationships are based on the expectations of mutuality of interest with both parties expecting comparable benefits from relationships. The benefits to a firm of developing a relationship are well documented. The present study is based on the concept of commitment and its impact on customer relationship marketing in banking sector in India in the post-liberalization era.

E-Mail Surveillance At Workplace

The popularity of Internet worldwide has transformed the way individuals and companies carry out their daily transactions. Electronic mail a.k.a. email is a subset of the big Internet world. It is a communication facility that is slowly replacing the conventional mail. Its advantages had pursued individuals and businesses to adopt email facility as part of their daily life. However, many media headlines, including the court of law judgments, have highlighted the risk and the danger of emails facility at work. The way it has been misused, abused and violated has jeopardized the employer and has placed the relevant parties at risk. This and other reasons have led the management to monitor the emails usage by its employees. This paper examines the need for monitoring email usage at the work place. It looks into the extent of misuse of the facility by employees in general and with reference to Tenaga National Engineering and Consultancy (TNEC), Malaysia in particular. The paper also sheds light on employees’ perception on email monitoring. A well-defined organizational policy on email surveillance is the need of the hour, proposes the paper.